"Likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland", The Stinging Fly magazine.
If you wish to invite Kevin to give a poetry reading, do a talk or facilitate a writing workshop email kphiggins@hotmail.com or phone 087-6431748.

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Monday, 6 August 2012

'My Inner Conspiracy Theorist'

G.K. Chesterton said "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing — they believe in anything." I don't believe in God and so disagree with that statement. However, it's clear that when the big ideas collapse - god being but one such idea, the Marxist idea of the class struggle and historical progress is another - some people can't cope with the nothing that's left to believe in and do indeed end up believing any old rubbish. The evidence is everywhere. Nowhere more so than on Facebook.

The other day a Facebook 'friend', who I do not know personally, posted a propagandistic picture about the 'Zionist bankers', the Rothschilds, a favourite of conspiracy theorists everywhere. I commented to the effect that this was the same old anti-semitic rubbish Hitler used to go on with and then unfriended said individual. Life is simply too short. But I could still see this person's Facebook posts. One Facebook friend of this person commented that "Hitler was a Rothschild" and that the 'Holocaust' [the inverted commas are hers] was set up to "get them [the Jews] back to Israel". My by now former Facebook friend commented that she agreed absolutely.

This person is a big supporter of rights for the Palestinians and no doubt considers herself to be on the Left. She's nothing of the sort of course; no Marxist or Liberal or Anarchist (if these words are to have any meaning at all) would ever put inverted commas around the Holocaust. She is rather a believer in wild conspiracy myths, some of which have their roots on the Left but many of which clearly have their roots on the extreme Right.

A favourite of conspiracy heads everywhere is the 'issue' - the inverted commas in this case are mine - of fluoride in your tap water.